PhantomNVD: And what's with the need to be within 5 of the speed limit within 5 secs?

Whatever happened to "it's a limit not a target"

I got my full in days you just paid the money, but had to do my car full test later when I wanted to get P endorsement.

While I passed, I lost points from not maintaining 100kmh travelling uphill, and not accelerating up to 100kmh fast enough after doing U-turn on main road (no traffic coming). Both of these were not my "fault", but were simply down to fact I had small car/small engine, low power carb engine with auto... I was trying to accelerate as briskly as possible (3500 RPM gear changes), without over revving and potentially upsetting tester for that.

PhantomNVD: And what's with the need to be within 5 of the speed limit within 5 secs?

Whatever happened to "it's a limit not a target"

I got my full in days you just paid the money, but had to do my car full test later when I wanted to get P endorsement.

While I passed, I lost points from not maintaining 100kmh travelling uphill, and not accelerating up to 100kmh fast enough after doing U-turn on main road (no traffic coming). Both of these were not my "fault", but were simply down to fact I had small car/small engine, low power carb engine with auto... I was trying to accelerate as briskly as possible (3500 RPM gear changes), without over revving and potentially upsetting tester for that.

That's exactly the point I was making, the tenuous statement about inciting road rage in others to require a driver to attain the speed limit within a small time frame makes driving safer... how???

I'm going for a full retest myself tomorrow, also for my P endorsement, and went out with a driving school instructor for a 'brush up' session today.... one thing she pulled me up on was (not) making a shoulder check when turning right, even though there was a full meter-wide, pavement height island in my 'blind' spot... seriously?Must I always check a truck isn't trying to overtake me in a rush?? (no car could mount that curb at any speed at all)

SAFE driving should be the focus, not mindless rigid rules based driving, especially when said rules are not even in the road code!

As some of the article comments in the OP say I think it's mainly down to parents teaching their children their bad habits they have picked up over decades of driving in autopilot. However with the new restricted a practice test wouldn't be a bad idea so you know what to brush up on first.

When the new restricted tests came in the pass rate at our local VTNZ went from 80% to 40% and has only recently crept to over 50%. People are going to potentially make more errors going from a 10-15min basic test to a 40min test, hence the minimum recommended driving time went from 80 to at least 120 hours. The full dropped from a ~40min test down to 20min as a result. It's a drastic change but hopefully it makes a difference in regards to teen fatalities like it's aimed to.

When I sat my restricted before the new one came in the only things I did other than normal suburb/city driving was some lane changes in a 60k at the instructors request and reversing 20m+ in a straight line...no parallel parking, 3 point turns, turning right into intersecting traffic etc so you can see why so many were passing with questionable driving under the old tests.

Check the nzta test guides, they cover everything that's expected of you during the tests.

kawaii: Just a background, I'm on a learners licence working towards a learners motorcycle and then eventually a restricted onto full - current I ride a 50cc Aprilia scooter to and from work. Personally I flat out refuse to get a car licence ... snip

When I was at school at had a really bad experience on my first driving lesson, through a driving school, which put me off cars and I made same decision as you, I worked through the stages of motorcycle licence and did not progress with car licence.

kawaii: I do have an issue with driving testers who are overly zealous at failing someone because the driver is more cautious about whether to enter the round-about. The accidents with young people have nothing to do with lack of confidence it is caused by young kids with too much confidence and are too cocky - the person being cautious about entering a round-about or stopping at a give way sign just to be absolutely sure should be behaviours that are encouraged not penalised.

And there was my bad experience!

I booked the lesson and made it clear I'd never been behind the wheel, let alone a manual transmission. I spent the hour basically going around and around a block... but the instructor was getting infuriated with me as I was not used to manual transmission (which I found a distraction to learning to "drive"), and was trying to learn AND be safe... and at the give ways I would slow right down/or pause just 0.5 second style and continue on but he said I must maintain a decent speed and only stop if there is a car... while I understand what he is saying, he couldn't understand what I was saying that I was trying to be safe rather than sorry, by going slow until I got used to operating a car and the transmission.

What new drivers don't appreciate is most of the driving ability is judgement - that cannot be taught.

For example, turning into a busy street - how do you judge a gap? How fast must you accelerate to get into that once in an hour gap without causing the oncoming car to have to initiate emergency stoppage manouevre that could cause a cascade of cars to rear end like a snowball ... What difference does it make doing this in a 50k zone, 80k, 100k, small roundabout, large roundabout, two laned medium roundabout, blind corner at 50k, blind corner at 100k, etc ...

Having said that farmers are the worst. Driving at 100k round the bend these idiot utes will (I can see them so obviously they can see me if they actually looked) come out in front of you ... always a muddy ute, sometimes a muddy japanese sedan.

So if people failed at what appears at random, the instructor had that "gut" feeling about one's judgement. But I agree the testing process should be better that what it appears ... but that's the bottom line if I were a tester.